They canceled the common share in December and gave the company away to the top executives in a private stock offering. These are not the benevolent capitalists you are looking for.<p><a href="http://www.jal.co.jp/en/other/info2010_0831.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.jal.co.jp/en/other/info2010_0831.html</a>
<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/12/27/jal-idUSSGE6BQ08C20101227" rel="nofollow">http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/12/27/jal-idUSSGE6BQ08C2...</a>
Has anyone written a good book on Japanese corporate/management/business culture? I hear a lot of tidbits about it, both good and bad, mentioned in recurring news articles like this one. They're intriguing enough that I'd like to read something deeper and well-researched, but I can't seem to find anything that looks like a good overview book.<p>The only books I can find seem to either be of the "teach Westerners how to do business in Japan" variety (not my interest), or very specialist academic books and paper anthologies on narrow aspects.
I expected to read this as another '$1 a year salary' story, wherein the CEO was still _actually_ rich, but only brought in a meager 'salary', owing the rest to dividends.<p>What I got instead was a story about what seems to be a brilliant boss. He lowered his own salary along with everybody else's. He's accessible. He actually rides his planes and lets people know he's the CEO of the airline.<p>In short, he is accessible to both his customers and employees. In the startup world this probably isn't that uncommon -- when you have a staff of four or twenty, accessibility is easy to get. Wikipedia lists Japan Air as having over 30,000 employees.<p>This is impressive to me, however, it's worth pointing out that despite this practicality and accessibility, the article linked was written in 2009, and Japan Air filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year.
Keep in mind that JAL is under chapter 11 bankruptcy, so it's not like JAL is full of cash.<p>I like his attitude more than those bank executives that got bailed out and paid themselves multi millions at the same time.
While a lot of what he does is admirable, I find it reprehensible that he pays himself so little (assuming he's not compensated in some other way). Either he is actually worth that little, or he's pretending to be worth less to make people feel better.<p>If it's the former, the airline should hire a new CEO.<p>If it's the latter, it's a petty pretense aimed at petty people. And a self-respecting "ordinary" person who has a sense of the value of her time would consider it a slap in her face if her boss doesn't see fit to apply the same sorts of standards to his time.
Not to be negative but he might be doing it to avoid income taxes. So many silicon valley CEO's do that. The real questions are what is compensation + stock options. The article does not provide that information.<p>Nonetheless, its a good idea to appreciate people's value with good pay.<p>When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others.
- Francisco D'Acconia
But how many times did he get a taxpayer funded bailout / corporate wellfare? The real value of the american CEOs isnt that the run profitable business, it's that they get other peope to pay for their fuck ups.
Cynically, I reckon this kind of behaviour is about manipulating morale, tax and dividends. I applaud his actions - but I'd be very surprised if he wouldn't have benefited from any increase in company profitability.